Lucretia Donnell

On a cold day in February 1893, Anna Robinson Ayers gave birth to her fourth daughter with Reverend William L. Ayers in a small, two-room shack on a ranch near Blanket, Texas where the family had settled almost three years before.  Born prematurely, the baby was named Ruth Lucretia—a beautiful name to make up for lack of natural beauty in the scrawny, jaundiced infant. 

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Little Ruth grew up sickly with recurring bouts of jaundice.  After a fall from a swing on the school yard, a boy commented that she looked like a “yellow cricket” laying on the ground.  Her older sisters, who constantly tormented young Ruth, picked up on the name calling her “Cricket” for the rest of their lives—even after the jaundice was largely cured with a course of iron, quinine and strychnine.  The family continued to grow placing Ruth in the middle of the order.  One day one of the older girls was swinging a bucket and caught Ruth in the head fracturing her skull.  Her life hung in the balance for weeks, and it was months before she could sit up again. 

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The family moved around Texas quite a bit from Blanket, to Carbon, and Gorman.  During that time, Ruth developed a love of reading and art.  Her education was almost cut short in high school.  The teacher caught her doodling a caricature of him saying he was nuts.  As he was about hit her with a ruler, Ruth kicked him so hard he collapsed.  She was sent home, and the Ayers had a difficult time getting their daughter reinstated in the school. 

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Ruth had a stubborn streak and often clashed with her mother.  Growing up at the turn of the century, Mrs. Ayers made the family clothes.  Ruth hated the way hers looked and often fought with her mother over it until her mother finally threw a half-finished dress at her.  Encouraged by a favorite aunt, she made her dresses from that day.  Her Aunt Babe also taught her how to knit, crochet, and “lots of interesting things.”

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Discouraged by poor teachers, Ruth found high school a grind.  She was an excellent reader, so by her own admission appeared smarter than she was but struggled with higher math.  But after a visit by a family friend, who was a cartoonist who taught her how to produce more exciting works she became highly motivated.  She enrolled in the Simmons College in Abilene but was pulled out during the first year due to the death of one of her older sisters.  That time in school which had been cut short served to light a thirst for knowledge in Ruth that she had never known before. 

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About this time, a young man was touring to open stores in north Texas.  He met with Rev. Ayers and was impressed with his religious zeal.  After visiting the house, J. C. Penney asked Ruth what she wanted to do.  She expressed a desire to return to school and study art.  Having seen her drawings, he recognized her talent.  Mr. Penney supplied a scholarship at Baylor Female College in Belton for her. 

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Upon enrolling, she reinvented herself dropping her first name, opting to go by her middle name, Lucretia. She restyled her hair to cover the scar from her skull fracture, as well as, a birth mark.  Lucretia Ayers was ready to meet the world.

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At Baylor she studied charcoal, oils, watercolors and tapestry.  Her mentor, Jane Gasparo, a graduate of the Art Institute in Chicago, soon had her manning the kiln as well.  Lucretia later claimed that she learned “all the fundamentals from just firing” so that by the time she actually started china painting she caught on very quickly. 

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Lucretia’s health was still tenuous and an illness in her second year almost forced her to leave school.  The doctor wanted her to quit, but Ms. Gasparo persuaded the Ayers to let their daughter return.  When she did return, she excelled winning multiple awards and recognitions earning her a spot as a professor at Baylor in the art department upon her graduation.

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As a Baptist minister’s daughter, Lucretia sought out a church while attending Baylor, and started singing in the choir.  It wasn’t long before a young man stared telling his friend he wanted to go to church just to see the girl who looked like an “Angel” sing.  He finally introduced himself, and Earl Donnell and Lucretia dated for her final two years of college.  They were married in Waco on 14 September 1913 during her first year of teaching.

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The newlywed Lucretia knew how to set a wonderful table with plates she had made herself, but didn’t learn how to cook the food to put on them until after she married.  On their first Thanksgiving, a friend prepared the meal she told her in laws that she had cooked. 

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The following year, Lucretia almost died from typhoid fever.  By the fall, she had recovered and returned to teaching. 

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The couple lived in Temple and in the spring of 1917 the first addition to the family arrived.  It was a difficult delivery and both mother and daughter had a long hospital stay.  Since Earl never called his wife by her name, opting to call her “His Angel,” he insisted their daughter be called Lucretia. 

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By the end of the year, Lucretia was pregnant with the couple’s second child, this time a son, the “Great War” had begun, and Earl went to Mussel Shoals, Alabama for his service to his country.   Lucretia remained in Temple while doing her part for the war by knitting socks and making care packages for the Red Cross when she wasn’t caring for two infants.  The whole time she missed her deployed husband…and her paint brush.

 

After the war, the family moved again, this time to the oil fields of west Texas and their promise of wealth.  Following a visit to the State Fair, the couple decided to relocate to Dallas, initially settling in the Oak Cliff section, until the oaks triggered too much of Lucretia’s asthma and the family moved to the University Park section of the city. 

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Earl’s family had owned and run a creamery, so it was natural that he started the Donnell Ice Cream Company in Dallas.  As her children grew, Lucretia began to paint more.  She studied under Dallas artists John Knott, Frank Klepper, Frank Reaugh, and Martha Simkins.  In the summers, she would travel to New Mexico to study with the Taos Society for Artists including with Oscar Berninghaus, Ernest Blumenschein and Frederick Becker.  Winters often included lectures at the Chicago Art Institute.  Earl’s business did well enough that eventually the family built a home based on plans drawn by Lucretia with a lake view.  In that home, there was furniture she carved herself after studying with A. H. Strohmeyer.

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Their daughter, Lucretia, showed a talent for art early in life.  Frank Reaugh took her under his wing when she was only six years old and became a well-known artist. 

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The couple’s son Earl, Junior was an Eagle scout and aeronautical engineer who graduated from the University of Texas.  He got his Master’s from California Institute of Technology.  He was studying combat aircraft for the Navy at the end of 1941 when the US entered World War II.  On 1 Feb 1942, his Daughtless Dive bomber was shot down during a mission off the USS Enterprise over the western Mashall Islands.  He was listed as missing in action.

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The Donnells were devasted.  Lucretia went to Southern Aircraft and asked for work.  The Navy named a destroyer escort vessel for Earl Jr., the USS Donnell (DE-56) which Lucretia christened on 13 March 1943 in Hingham, Massachusetts.  There was also a fighting squadron named for him which Lucretia adopted.  She wrote a monthly newsletter to them and their families for the duration of war.  For her war efforts, Lucretia was presented with a Certificate of Appreciation in 1947 from the US Navy.

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During this time, daughter Lucretia married and started her family.  Taking a cue from their grandfather, the three young children called their grandmother, “Grand Angel” and were a source of light during years of darkness.

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In 1951, Lucretia took a year to study in Europe driving over ten thousand miles exploring the continent and porcelain factories.  Somehow, she even made it to the ones behind the new “Iron Curtain.”  Two years later, she and Earl drove from Puerto Rico to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on the road trip of a lifetime.  The letters they sent home to their grandchildren were illustrated by their daughter and published as the book, Adventures on the Pan American Highway of South America.    

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By the late 1950s, Donnell sought to elevate china painting which was often seen as a hobby and not an art.  She decided to start with the teachers.  First, she started by helping to form the China Painting Teachers of Texas in 1957.  Never one to think small, the next year, she established the National China Painting Teachers Organization, NCPTO. 

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While Lucretia was organizing china painting teachers, Earl’s health was declining.  He passed away just prior to the first convention of the NCPTO in 1960.

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Over the next few years, the NCPTO became the International China Painting Teachers Organization.  Eventually, artists were allowed to join without being a teacher and the organization renamed itself as International Porcelain Artists and Teacher, Incorporated.  After twenty years of operating out of member’s homes, in 1978 the organization opened an official headquarters and museum in Dallas, Texas.  Lucretia, now Lucretia Wideman having married Whitney “Doc” Wideman in 1972, was one of the first to sign the guest book.  In June 1980, thanks in part to lobbying efforts by Donnell and IPAT, the Congress of the United States and President Jimmy Carter declared china painting a fine art and declared the month, “National Porcelain Art Month.”

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Donnell and Wideman divorced in the early 80s.  She continued to play an active role in IPAT. 

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Slightly two weeks after her 95th birthday, Lucretia Donnell passed away on 24 February 1988.  She is buried beside her beloved Earl in Restland Memorial Park in Dallas.  Her legacy lives on not only in her art, but in the organizations that she started that continue to inspire new generations of artists.